No, I’m not going to burst into Icelandic shitpöp from 1995. Yes, I know Björk wasn’t the original artist.

But it has been quiet here though hasn’t it?

The thing is…for the past few years – ever since the inception of 250beers.com – my passion for good beer and blogging about the stuff has got in the way of work. I think I’d ridden my luck with a few previous employers if I’m brutally honest. Oddly though, the situation has been reversed. My work has gotten in the way of blogging…through nobody’s fault but my own.

I didn’t make too much noise about it when it happened last April but I was fortunate enough to land a job with Newstead Brewing Co – a sub-standard micro brewery at the arse-end of Brisbane. There was no song and no dance. Why would there be? It wasn’t as if I’d scooped a gig a Castlemaine Perkins.

Soon after my employment had commenced I found that I was spending much of my spare time devoted to my new job. I immersed myself into it. Heck, my passion for good beer had evolved into a strong passion for my employers business – brewing beer – and I was being paid for it. To make things weirder my boss, Mark Howes, is a good friend. I had taken the ill-advised route of mixing business with pleasure…people suggest that it’s a bad idea. We’ll see.

Folk began saying things to me such as “You’ve reached your goal!” or “You’re now working in beer. You’ll stop blogging now right?”

Well, no. That wasn’t the intention at all. I never set out blogging to score a paid job in the beer industry. When it happened I felt like the luckiest boy in Brisbane – I still do. I am for fuck’s sake! But I never really intended for my lil’ ol’ blog to fall by the wayside.

When I first took on the Brand Ambassador role at NBCo I told myself (and my employers) that I’d refrain from waffling on about NBCo and how frickin’ cool it is as a bar/brewpub/venue. It bloody well is frickin’ cool but it would be a little biased of me to continually promote the place via my blog.

Fast forward six months and not only is there no bias, there’s completely zero content happening!

I was close to seeing 250beers.com vanish into the vortex of blogs gone by. Recently I nearly pulled the pin on it and said goodnight forever. I was millimetres away from turning off the light (and mid and heavy). But I can’t. I can’t seem to do it.

It sounds wanky but it took hours of blog fuckery to build up a social media base and readership for 250beers.com (I’m not for one minute suggesting that content was any good). It didn’t happen overnight and it humbles me greatly that blogging has enabled me to do lots of beer related stuff including brewing on a large scale multiple times plus traveling interstate. Breweries sometimes send me free beer and the smile upon receipt will never waiver. Ultimately, being an active member of Brisbane’s beer community via a blog may well have helped convince NBCo to take a gamble on me and give me a job.

It would be incorrect to assume that me faffing around on my laptop into the night is being enforced by my employers. That is most certainly not the case. The only person putting pressure on me is me. There’s a lot that I’m doing at work – predominantly things that nobody has ever done before at NBCo – uncharted territory maybe for both me and them. There’s no brewing though. Uh-uh. I’m not permitted anywhere near the shiny things that make beer. The business is small but growing (hopefully). If I can bring the tiniest smidgen of support to that growth then I’ll be happy buuuuuut I think I need to take back my evenings.

Back to blogging.

They say that the average life span of a blog is 18 months. This here blog started life in June 2012 and this is blog post #350. The 349th was a while ago. I’ll put the lack of posts in recent months down to a hiatus. A holiday. A holiblogaday. What?

Don’t blow any more steam up the online thread pipe. Focus on the business and pleasure. For every troll you must have a dozen supporters. So more about NBCo. and the fun stuff. There is enough negativity on the web. No room for it anywhere. Catch you soon for a beer I hope.

I too, am very happy to see you back. It is so very refreshing to read excellent and informative articles about one of my favourite subjects – beer – from someone who can actually spell (a very rare ability these days it seems – if one takes in just 15 or 20mins of reading on the inter-web)…